The title says it all ;-) I got SuSE 10 installed, and I want to create "backup" folders that I can use to copy all my files to from other computers that are running windows. I think I have Samba set up the way it needs to be, and I can even "see" the computer on my windows network now (in the same workgroup as my other computers, no less!)... the thing is, when i try to open it, it says "cannot access" or whatever... it's much the same error message that I get when I have an overactive firewall on a filesharing computer (leading me to believe a linux firewall is the culprit here) Assuming my assumptions are true (wow! what a sentence!), how do I disable the SuSE10 firewall so Samba can share my linux folders??

Or do I even WANT to disable the firewall? Is there another way?

Setting up samba correctly can be a real pain as there is a myriad of different configuration options in smb.conf. You don't need to disable the firewall. IIRC SUSE's firewall configuration tool in YaST had a checkbox where you can permit traffic to Samba shares.

I'll probably fool around with the firewall checkboxes later... as for right now, I just disabled the firewall (ive got one in my router, and I'm also really not in any danger of being hacked atm...)

But now ive got another problem... i can see my shared folders from my windows computer, but I can't go inside them to copy over files! It tells me that I "might not have permission to use this network resource" and that the "network path was not found." All I want is a folder that I can access from any computer in the house for load/store and backup purposes.


...and eventually an FTP server with the same capability... but that's much later.

Try setting security = share in smb.conf. This way authentication is skipped and anyone is allowed to access any share.

Here is an example of a completely public share:
[public]
path = /what/to/share
public = yes
guest ok = yes
only guest = yes
browsable = yes
writable = yes
directory mask = 0777
create mask = 0666
printable = no

You should set hosts allow too to make sure only computers from inside your home network can access the samba server.